Challenges in Chemistry Graduate Education: A Workshop Summary (2012)

Chemistry graduate education is under considerable pressure: pharmaceutical companies, long a major employer of synthetic organic chemists, are paring back their research divisions to reduce costs; chemical companies are opening research and development facilities in Asia rather than in the United States to take advantage of growing markets and trained workforces there; and universities, are under significant fiscal constraints that threaten their ability to hire new faculty members. Furthermore, federal funding of chemical research may be limited as the federal budget tightens.

To explore and respond to these intensifying pressures, the Board on Chemical Sciences and Technology held a workshop that brought together representatives from across the chemical enterprise, including academia, industry, and government. The goal of the workshop was to discuss critical issues affecting chemistry graduate education, such as attracting and retaining the most able students in graduate education, financial stressors, competencies needed in the changing job market for Ph.D. chemists, and addressing societal problems such as energy and sustainability. The ultimate objective was to capture ideas and opinions as input to the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, and other organizations in shaping current and future chemistry programs.

The National Research Council's Board on Chemical Sciences and Technology held a workshop on Jan. 23-24, 2012 to discuss the graduate education in chemistry within the context of a changing environment for the practice of chemistry. The workshop focused on the goals of graduate education in chemistry, and whether current programs align with goals appropriate for the current era. The workshop included discussions of:

– Attracting and retaining the most able students to graduate education.

– Financial stressors on the current support model and their implications for the future graduate education model.

– Competencies needed in the changing job market for Ph.D. chemists. This includes nontraditional opportunities such as entrepreneurship, and employment in start-ups or other small businesses. It also includes changes in traditional opportunities such as the increasing off-shoring of basic chemistry research by major firms, and the evolving drug-discovery model and its impact on employment in the pharmaceutical sector.

– Competencies needed to address societal problems such as energy and sustainability.

Holden Thorp, Chancellor, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (via web)Paul Houston, Dean, College of Sciences, Georgia Institute of TechnologyMarye Ann Fox, Chancellor, University of California at San DiegoMike Doyle, Chair, Department of Chemistry, University of Maryland at College Park

Chemists in Non-academic Settings: How well is graduate training preparing PhDs to solve problems outside the academic setting?

Panel discussion: What are the skills industry managers need in PhD chemists, and how are employment of chemists and the skills they need evolving?